More Debunked Statistics: $9.5 billion Industry?

“It’s estimated that child sex trafficking in the United States alone is a $9.8 billion industry.”

“This (human trafficking) is domestically a $9.5 billion business.”

The first was posted on the internet by an organization. One problem with this statistic was that the staff was supposed to write human trafficking, not sex trafficking. But even despite that mistake, the report that was sited for this figure does not even mention a $9.8 billion industry of human trafficking in the United States. What it does mention is an estimate of $13 billion in profits for forced sexual exploitation in 36 countries. So where did the $9.8 billion figure come from? Basically it was the result of multiplying a guesstimate of profits to a guesstimate of people forced into prostitution. Read the article below for the specific details.

The second claim was said to be an FBI estimate. They have no record of this. Fact Checker suggests that the $9.5 billion figure may have come from a 2004 congressional testimony. However, even in this, the official was talking about profits from human smuggling and trafficking worldwide. So this estimate simply does not exist.